Poetry in Motion: Byron meets Van Gogh along the canal…

With apologies to both Lord Byron (& the Romantic poets) and Van Gogh… BTW, can’t wait till the Van Gogh exhibit comes to the National Gallery of Canada next month! 🙂

[Below: Runner takes flight over canal – this is a mixed media illustration initially drawn with pen & ink, colored with watercolor crayons & wash, and then scanned into Photoshop to darken the lighting of the image and add some wispy white clouds to create a more dream-like ethereal feel.]

Opening up an artistic time capsule…

Last night, I was putting the final touches on an educational presentation I had to give today on the topic of diabetes and heart disease, and I stumbled upon an old memory stick. I thought, brilliant, I’ll just use this to save and transport my work. So, I open it up to see what was on it, and presto, all these old files from the early 2000s appear with some artwork and educational stuff I had done 10 years ago!? What a blast from the past! Amazing how you can instantly be transported back in time by an image… All of a sudden, I was magically whisked back to those heady days of my first clinical-research-education job in a vibrant city with really great friends. For a moment, I felt so young and idealistic again!.. 🙂 (I’d still consider myself an idealist today – albeit with a bit more street smarts and skepticism. As for young, well, I guess I’d still be considered relatively young, except that I’ve always felt like an old soul, even 10 years ago… But I digress…)

Anyway, here is a sample of some illustrations I had drawn back then with my favourite drawing implement – the black Sharpie marker. Since I didn’t know how to use PhotoShop or Illustrator at the time, I just did the sketches and an artist from a really cool, local graphics art firm did the colorizing. The images were used to support the narrative in a couple of diabetes education booklets that I had collaborated on back in 2002 with an endocrinologist that we ended up publishing (in very limited release). This was definitely one of the most fun art projects I ever did, which I totally would’ve done for free. I remember actually feeling guilty getting paid for work that didn’t feel like work… Ahhh, if only all jobs could feel like that… 😉

Dating Don’ts: Professing one’s love via mail-order brownies

I am terrible at dating. Seriously.

Let me be perfectly honest: I am not the most prolific dater, but the dates I have been on have been mostly disastrous and/or really awkward. Especially the on-line meet-ups and blind-date fix-ups. For whatever reason, they never seem to work out for me.

One of my more memorable, one-hit-wonder dating episodes included being fixed up by a well-meaning friend with her ex-boyfriend (I know, that should’ve been an automatic red flag – let’s call it mistake # 1), who was not fluent in English and who was a lab scientist.

Mistake # 2 was carrying on a prolonged e-courtship before even meeting in-person. This is how you get into trouble creating expectations or an idealized version of this person based on all your hopes and dreams for your Mr./Ms. Right, which are probably innumerated on that list (either written or in your head) that you deny you have about all the attributes your perfect partner must possess or radiate… (I think, more than anything, I was hesitant about going on a date with this guy and e-mail was a stalling tactic and not part of some larger stated strategy of honing my French writing skills and perhaps impressing this guy in the process.) Eventually, I bit the bullet and we ended up going out on a date to a great little neighborhood seafood bistro (my recommendation) in a hip, very French part of town. I had been to this place a few times before and knew the service was impeccable, the ambience charming, and the owner-chef sympathique. The place was packed that night and had a great vibe. The food, as usual, was fantastic. Ahhh, but the chemistry between my date and me was anything but sizzling. (I remember feeling so uncomfortable by the permanent blush on his face as he attempted to speak to me in broken English.) I had bought a new outfit for the occasion – a turquoise INC sweater with matching floral appliqué, skinny, dark boot cut jeans and high-heeled black ankle boots; by comparison, he had worn something perfectly suited to a casting call for the Big Bang Theory. When the meal ended and the bill arrived, the waiter placed it at my date’s side of the table. My date looked over at me and innocently observed how interesting it was that the waiter would be so quick to assume that the man would be paying the bill. (Mistake # 3 – going out with someone with poor social graces and possibly a cheap streak.) I was not impressed, as he had been the one who had asked me out. (Ergo, he should pay, non?) Rather than get into a heated debate about gender roles and expectations, however, I exercised diplomacy (an unfortunately infrequent inclination on my part) and suggested we split the bill. We did, and then we made our way out to our respective vehicles. The whole time I was praying he wouldn’t try to kiss me, and turned up my reserve a few notches as a means of discouraging any such potential encounter. (I also had extra height in my favour, as I was already taller than him, and with the help of the heels, rather out of easy reach.) After lingering for a few awkward moments, we… shook hands (I know, brutal – mea culpa, it was a very Temperance Bones move on my part, but it served the purpose) and then (mercifully) departed without any verbal (or written ;-)) commitment to see each other again. I was relieved… A few days later, I was picking up my mail and noticed a tattered Laura Secord box inside my mailbox. Curious, since I am a hard-core chocolate addict (though admittedly more than a bit on the gourmet side – ok, “chocolate snob” – so Laura wouldn’t have exactly cut it for me), I took the box upstairs and opened it. It contained a half-dozen homemade chocolate brownies!? And, it was from the scientist! I was horrified.

[Above: This is a Sharpie marker cartoon sketch I did and then colorized in Photoshop.]

How did he get my address?? (And, more importantly, what might he have put in those brownies?? Safe to assume not money like we used to get inside the cake at kids’ birthday parties back in the 80s.) I didn’t know what to do with this unusual gift, so I took it into work and showed it to a couple of my good girlfriends. I didn’t tell them what was in it, but as soon as they opened the box and saw the brownies, all three of us suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. (Of course, the boss walked in on us and once he heard the story, began defending the guy’s brownie outreach as unique and endearing!? Perhaps my boss, too, had engaged in some mail-order pastry hijinks back in the day?..) I know, it’s terrible to make fun of this innocent gesture (assuming the brownies were not in fact laced with chemicals — we never did sample them), especially since I have made my own fair share of faux pas (but those are other stories for subsequent posts…). Likely, this guy was well-intentioned, but there was something so comical about receiving homemade brownies in a beat-up, recycled box of chocolates, instead of actually receiving the original chocolates (in a nice box). It was like saying, these chocolates are too good to give away, so I’m just going to scarf them down myself (or perhaps apportion them for other potential, more promising dates) and save the box, whip up a batch of Duncan Hines brownies and impress the pants off this girl with my baking skills, creativity (and fiscal responsibility)… As my wiser-than-her-years little sis had pointed out at the time, however, I likely would’ve cut this guy some slack had we connected at all on our date. It’s true. If you think about follow-ups after dates, if you’re really interested, it’s not so much what they do to follow up but that they follow up — and promptly. As an example of my own potential ‘mail-order brownie mishap’, I can remember impulsively picking up a questionable gift for a guy I was crazy about that probably would’ve freaked a lot of other guys out or left them a little bewildered. It was a kids’ book and though this guy had a couple of young kids from a previous marriage, I had primarily intended it for him to lift his spirits (he had been having a bad week) and give him a good laugh. The book? Walter the Farting Dog. Not exactly sexy or high-brow literature for this erudite guy. Oh well, thank goodness, the object of my affection thought it was hilarious and really appreciated my gesture of caring. (Or, he did a very convincing acting job.) I was lucky, but I also knew my ‘target audience’ better, too… [As a postcript, I’m happy to report that I heard that — despite this inauspicious date with me — Mr. Scientist did go on to meet a lovely girl and have a family.]